Horseback riding!

There is a website over here like is like Groupon or LivingSocial, and they had a deal for a horseback riding! I called everyone up and asked if they wanted to go, and since they did I tried to buy it.

But the website wouldn't take my credit card, since it was a US card. But there is an option to pay in the banks using a little blue form. So I went to a bank and filled out the form accordinly, all but the spot for the MK social security number. When I get up to the cashier lady, she says I can pay in a bank if I go to the bank that the company uses since I don't have the Social Secuirty number.

So I go to that bank and wait in line, and then they say I can't pay because I am a foreigner! A new law passed on Sept 1 for banks. If you don't have a bank account, then you can't pay at a bank. If you aren't a citizen, you can't open an account. Since we have special staus here, we can't open accounts. We don't have foreigner staus, and thus can't open accounts.

So I emailed the company with the horseback riding, and they agreed to honor the agreement that they had. So we were all set for Sept 10!

You have heard of Jen, Lizzie and Justin, but I am not sure I ever told you about Mary or Stephaine! Mary is a Fulbrighter in Kosovo teaching English. Stephanie was an intern at the US Embassy this fall semester, and I met her at an Embassy event. (I was smiling at someone and they smiled back and I thought to myself- she must be American! She was!).

We met up on the 10th and caught a bus out to Gorche Petrov (a part of the larger city of Skopje, kinda like New Orleans has parishes, Skopje has districts). Where we were to meet the guy in front of the European Eye Hospital- I know interesting!  I of course took some pictures while we were waiting:

 

Then we walked a little bit over to where they had the horses ready. The guy was super nice, and joked with us a lot! Before we could go up the mountain, we had to "practice" with one of the horses. Walk in a circle, stop and go. Oh and get on and off! It was harder than I remembered! I volunteered to go first and had fun trying it out. Then everyone took a short ride. He then assigned us all a horse and we took off to towards the begining of the trail. I was on Micky!

When we got to the bridge that you saw earlier, we all dismounted and they walked the horses over the bridge for us. We then remounted and took off. We didn't dismount until about 2 hours later! We rode up Vodno towards Saint Panteleimon - Dolno Nerezi, a well known Monastery. We passed some older buildings that looked a little bombed out, but were just old and falling apart. We also passed a cemetary on the way up. When we got to the top, we had coffee at the restaurant and then headed back down. on the way back down, we even gallopped! But here are the pictures! And a video to boot!

Part 2! There is only a link for the second one beacause blogger and youtube are being stupid!